science writer + photographer

NASA Is Creating Glowing Clouds for Science

Atlas Obscura

May 31, 2017

IF YOU’RE ON THE EASTERN Seaboard and look up around 4:25 am on Thursday, June 1, don’t panic. The glowing red and green clouds you may see aren’t aliens or “chemtrails,” but harmless clouds of barium, strontium, and cupric oxide created by NASA to study how particles move through the atmosphere.